by James Hunt
After the shock of the scene had subsided, Susan finally stepped over the threshold from the hallway and into the room, passing the far side of the room. Susan still kept her distance, avoiding getting to close to Charlie, afraid that if she got too close that she might hurt him again.
Since he was unconscious, Susan knew that he couldn’t hear her, or see her, or even know that she was around. And so, she grabbed the one chair that was in the room and pulled it up next to the bed and sat down, folding her hands in her lap.
The weight of her actions pinned her down in the chair, and after she leaned her back against the soft cushion, which had that damp smell that most old, public seating collected over the years, she didn’t think that she would be able to get up again. She didn’t know if she wanted to get up.
“You said something to me earlier,” Susan said, her hand touching the crook of her arm where she’d put more needles than she should have. “You said that I’m someone who’s chasing ghosts. And I think you’re right.” She stopped touching her arm and then looked to Charlie.
The breathing apparatus pumped another breath into Charlie’s lungs. It was his only response.
“When I was a little girl, I would come home from school, and I would find my dad passed out on the couch, dead to the world.” Susan crossed her arms, and she suddenly felt cold. “No matter what I tried to do, he just wouldn’t wake up.” She shifted in the chair, then pulled her feet up onto the seat and hugged her knees into her chest. “When he was passed out on the couch, I used to tell him about my day. I pretended that he could hear me. I would have entire conversations with him as he lay on the couch with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels resting on his stomach.” She nodded along to the memory, still able to see him sleeping in those ratty, greasy clothes, having not showered for days.
“It actually wasn’t too bad when he was passed out,” Susan said. “As I got older, I appreciated the alone time a little more. But the truth was, I was always trying to find my father. I tried finding him in other men.” She flicked her eyes to Charlie, his face so bruised and bandaged from the beating he took, and she felt the tears start to come. “I tried to find him in you.” She grabbed the crook of her arm. “I tried to find it in the drugs, everywhere but the one place I didn’t want to look.” She tapped the side of her head. “I’ve always hated walking down memory lane. Everything is just so vivid—It’s like I can smell the booze and body odor, the stench of stale cigarettes and hot, humid summers after the power had been shut off because my father spent the utility money on another bender instead of the bill.” She wiped her eyes, and she didn’t feel like crying anymore. “After he died, I didn’t want to care about anybody again. I thought, fuck it. Screw the rest of the world if it wants to screw me too, you know?” She wiped snot from her upper lip, and it smeared on the cuff of her jacket sleeve. “But I do care about you, Charlie. And I know I can’t undo what happened to you, but I can make the people who hurt you pay.” She returned her feet back to the floor and then stood, walking right up to the bed until her hips touched the mattress.
Tufts of Charlie’s hair poked through the tops of the bandages, and she reached up on her tippy toes and gently kissed the one patch of exposed skin and brushed her fingertips through the exposed hair.
“I’ll hurt them,” Susan said. “Because hurting people seems to be the only thing that I’m good at.”
Susan stepped out of the room and walked down the hallway, and by the time she made it to the elevators and the doors opened, that hopelessness that left her so empty after she walked out of the precinct was replaced with purpose. And while she didn’t have a badge, where she was about to go, she knew that it would be better if she didn’t have one.
26
At night, most of the city slept, resting until the sun rose again. But for some, darkness was needed for their deeds. Predators would prowl the streets when the city was at its weakest and when the addicts and prostitutes and gang bangers went to work.
Susan had always been a night owl, which fit well with her type of work. And despite the long day, the fatigue from working the homicide case, she experienced a surge of adrenaline now that she was back in her element.
She had journeyed to the heart of the south side, where she watched the stronghold of the gang by the same name. Despite her questionable tactics while undercover, Susan had always remembered that she still wore a badge, even when it wasn’t hanging around her neck.
But she didn’t have one tonight.
Susan remembered the woman who had recruited her into the academy. The same woman who told her not to sleep with anyone in the department.
The pair had stayed in touch through her time at the academy, and when she graduated at the top of her class, the woman departed some other sage wisdom to her once the pair were bonded by the badge.
“Listen to me,” she said after Susan had told her that she was going to work for Vice. “You’re going to see some shit out there, and while I know you’ve seen some bad shit, it’s going to be different, because you’re going to be interacting with it on a different level than you ever have before. And the moment you step out onto the street, you remember that the one and ONLY rule, is to survive. That’s it. That’s the mindset that is required to make it out of Vice in one piece. And the only way you can survive is to break the rules, and make sure you don’t get caught doing it.”
The recruiter handed Susan a revolver, the weapon untraceable with its serial numbers scratched off. She also handed over a box of bullets, reloads that she picked up from random gun ranges. It would make ballistics a nightmare.
Susan had taken it without question. The woman hadn’t led her astray before, and Susan didn’t believe it was going to happen now. She always kept the revolver tucked into her ankle in case a situation turned south. And right now, Susan was as south as she could get.
She walked into the south side neighborhood, keeping her hood up and her head down, shuffling forward the way she did whenever she was looking to buy. She knew that no one would bother her. The only people that got mugged in this area were the people who looked like they didn’t belong, and Susan had never really left the shitty trailer park where she lived with her father.
Once she got close to the South Siders hangout, which she knew Marco frequented, she hung back, posting up on a nearby corner, and waited. Even from where she sat she could see his car, the gaudy late eighties Cadillac with the massive rims and tinted windows.
The house was quiet, but Susan spotted the pair of watchdogs that Marco kept on the porch at all times. At least until it got early in the morning, and that’s when Susan would make her move.
Marco was a creature of habit. On weeknights he’d spend most of his time bouncing around the smaller crews, checking in on business and making sure they were all selling out of the product.
But on Thursdays, the gang banger started his weekend early and partied all night at the main clubhouse. And then, just before morning, he would drive, by himself (apparently he enjoyed the solitude) to his private apartment out in the sticks to recover, where there was usually a woman or two waiting for him upon his arrival, arranged by his people beforehand.
While she waited for the early grey of dawn to return, Susan worked the plan over in her mind. She picked a spot on the street corner that she knew he would drive by, which was far enough away from the main house that it would take too long for his people to respond. Marco didn’t use much protection when he was on his own turf, and Susan suspected that he was feeling pretty invincible after his altercation with Charlie.
Susan removed the revolver from her ankle, keeping it hidden beneath the sleeve of her jacket. She sat there, rocking back and forth, waiting for Marco to show up. She ran through the scenario repeatedly, seeing it in her head, so there weren’t any mistakes.
Time passed slowly as she waited. Eventually, one of the house’s doors opened and let the music thumping inside escape into the night. Susan could see Marco on the front po
rch, speaking to the pair of men.
The door swung shut, and the music ended, and then Marco walked down the pathway from the front door and to the car, alone.
It took a minute before the car started and then the lights flashed on. Susan got up from the curb and then walked back down the street, never taking her eyes off the vehicle, but she started to sway and stumble back and forth, moving her left hand sporadically like she was talking to herself. She moved slow, not wanting to get closer to the house than she needed to, and then stopped and walked the opposite way when Marco drove forward.
The sound of the car’s engine grew louder, and Susan’s heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she thought it was shaking the jacket covering her body.
When Marco neared one of the intersections, Susan veered into the road, the turn sharp like she had just stumbled because she was drunk or high or crazy. But she moved far enough into the street to force Marco to stop and lay on the horn.
The window rolled down, and Marco stuck his head out the window. “Yo, what the fuck you doing? Get out of the road!”
Susan used the hood to help her get upright, and she paused, making sure the ruse was sold as she pretended to vomit, keeping her head down.
Marco groaned, and then Susan held up her left hand and then slowly walked around to the driver side door where Marco was laughing now.
“Damn, girl, you looking for a score?”
Susan mumbled some nonsense, her head tilted down so low she couldn’t even see Marco’s face, but she didn’t need to see his face, and she only needed to see the door handle that she knew was unlocked. The car model was so old that automatic locks weren’t a safety feature yet.
“Hey, let’s see that pretty face,” Marco said, still laughing, and she knew he was high.
Susan ripped open the car door and then punched Marco in the face with the snubbed nose of the revolver.
Wanting to keep up the momentum from the surprise attack, she opened the back door and climbed behind the driver seat, then placed the pistol of the weapon against the base of his skull. “Time to drive, Marco.”
He tried to reach for his piece but Susan cracked her revolver over the top of his head, and he stopped.
“I don’t think you heard me,” Susan said, pressing the tip of the revolver into the base of his skull. “Drive!”
Marco nodded, holding up his hands. “All right, bitch.” His eyes found the rearview mirror, and Susan didn’t make any attempt to try and conceal her face. She wanted him to see her now. “You really wanted to see me, all you had to do was ask.” He smiled. “The brothers would have loved to see your tight ass walk through our door. Where to, Officer?”
“Forward will do for now,” Susan answered. “Foot on the gas, fucker.”
It wasn’t a quiet ride like Susan would have wanted as Marco drove, keeping both hands on the wheel at all times. He continued to make idle threats.
Susan only spoke to tell Marco to turn left or right. It took him a while to realize where they were going, but when he did know it, he turned all the way around in his seat. “You fucking crazy?”
Susan used the tip of the revolver to push his chin forward. “Just keep driving.”
She knew of an old parking garage that had been abandoned after a prominent land developer pulled out of the neighborhood. They hadn’t received the needed support from state and local officials to make the renovations worthwhile, but because some of the infrastructures had already been started, the abandoned locations made for great spots for dark deeds. And the neighborhood that hadn’t been developed also happened to be the heart of Third Streeter's territory.
“You know I thought there was a reason why you didn’t want to show for the deal,” Susan said. “You knew that it was going to be a bust. You knew I was a cop and let it happen. Why? Why let your own guys fall? Why sacrifice your top lieutenant to the cops. Did you hate the Third Streeters that much? Is that it?”
“Fuck you, bitch.” Marco stopped the car and whipped his head around. “You think—GAH! FUCK!”
Susan cracked him in the same spot where she’d hit him before and triggered more blood. She waited for him to compose himself amid the cursing, and then she pointed to the old parking structure. “Go park over there.”
When the car was in the park, Susan kept the revolver trained on the back of his head as he stepped out and shut off the wagon. She took his keys and then his weapon, and told him to keep his hands on the back of his head as they walked forward up the concrete ramps.
“Just keep going to the top,” Susan said.
“You going to push me off?” Marco asked.
Their footsteps echoed in the darkness, and by the time they reached the top, that early grey of the morning was starting to break through and shake away the cold night that would take all day to thaw.
Susan walked him over to the ledge. The parking structure was six stories, but because the top hadn’t been completely finished, there was rebar where there should have been a concrete ledge to enclose the structure, making one wrong move a long way down.
“I want to know who gave me up,” Susan said. “I want to know how you knew my cover was blown.”
“You were sleeping with him,” Marco said. “That was your first mistake. You know that you don’t mix business with pleasure, honey. That only leads to trouble. And you’re in a shit ton of trouble right now, aren’t you?” He leaned his head to the side and grinned. “They find out that you were fucking Charlie?”
“So I was sleeping with him,” Susan said. “That doesn’t explain how you knew that I was police. I never wore a wire. I never carried a badge, so how did you fucking know?” she shouted.
Marco nodded along. “So that’s what this is about? You want to clear your guilty conscience of Charlie’s beatdown? You want to know that it wasn’t you who fucked up, that it had to be someone else?”
Susan kept the pistol aimed at Marco and stepped closer, the gang leader only taking a half step back before he realized he didn’t have any more space that separated him and a long fall.
Marco looked down at the ground and then back to Susan. “You’re one crazy bitch. I knew that the moment I saw you. You have that look that a lot of the girls I know have. But I’ve always liked the crazy ones. Call it my Achilles heel. Honestly, you’ve always scared the shit out of me. Like you were one of those women that could chop a man’s balls off without any remorse and then shove them down their throats.”
“He was a good man,” Susan said. “He didn’t deserve what you did to him. And how many others have you killed, huh? How many other lives have you destroyed by what you do and who you are? You’re just cancer that’s eating this city from the inside out.” She shook her head, and her voice was calm. “No one is going to miss you. In fact, I bet you’ve got some guys just waiting for you to kick the bucket so they can step into line and be the next Number One.”
Marco’s face went slack, and he shook his head, gently waving his hands as well. “Whoa, hold on now, think about this. You’re a cop. You can’t go around killing me.”
“No badge tonight, Marco,” Susan said, stepping forward. “They took it away from me. Right now I’m just a civilian with firearms training. I could put one right between your eyes from this distance. You know how many bullseyes I hit in the academy? I set a record for it.”
Marco’s desperation slowly faded to anger and he stomped his foot. “I’m not the one who even beat down your man!”
“But you made the call,” Susan said.
“No, I didn’t!” Marco shouted, hands still in the air, shuffling his feet back and forth like he had to pee. “It was Charlie. He was the one who made the call. He was the one who wanted out.”
It took a moment for the news to break through the wall of rage that Susan had built up around her, but when it finally did, she lowered her revolver. “What are you talking about?”
“He wanted out of the gang,” Marco answered. “Out of the life. I figured he
’d been making a move for a while, but I couldn’t figure out why he was so hell bent on making a break until I saw you rush over after my boys beat the shit out of him. That’s when I figured something was going on between the two of you. But not before.”
Susan remained still and quiet. There was no way for her to be sure if Marco was telling the truth until Charlie regained consciousness, and there was no guarantee that would happen.
Sensing Susan’s confusion, Marco continued to talk. “Look, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have told you. He came to see me personally about it. Said he knew the cost, knew the price about getting out. He knew it could kill him—”
“Shut up!” Susan screamed, spit flying from her lips. She suddenly realized that the sky had lightened and that dawn was fast approaching. She heard the increase in traffic noise on the highway to the east. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before the morning would bring more attention to her deeds. She needed to figure out what she was going to do with the human piece of garbage standing in front of her.
Deep down, Susan knew that this was all a bad move and that despite the justification for killing the man in front of her, she knew that this was one brand of justice that she couldn’t walk down. Because it was a slippery slope, and she knew what happened when she started down one of those paths that she couldn’t get back out.
Finally, Susan gestured for Marco to step away from the ledge. He moved slowly, keeping his hands up and never turning his back to Susan, the pair locking eyes.
“So we straight?” Marco finally asked after he was away from the ledge. “I mean, it was your man who asked for the beat down. It’s just part of our protocol.”
Susan wasn’t sure if that was the whole truth, but she knew that she didn’t have the time to figure it out. The morning was in full bloom, and she couldn’t hold him any longer. “Just stay right there.” She kept the pistol aimed at him and then walked back to the car, continuing a line of sight on him. She opened the car door and then grabbed the keys. She then searched the inside, quickly, and seized the extra weapons out of the glove box and trunk.